U.S. Out Now! How?
The current issue of Mother Jones' has taken up a discussion of the relationship between the current situation in Iraq and the connection with the American people."It started as Bush's war, but we all own it now — and it's time we took a hard look at what that means.
"You break it, you own it." So goes the "Pottery Barn rule" that Colin Powell invoked in his last-ditch attempts to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq. "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all."
In the end, of course, Powell caved to Bush's geopolitical whims, played the good soldier, and did as much as anyone to lie to the world and sell the case for invasion — an invasion driven by blind ideology, wishful thinking, and a feckless refusal to consider the consequences. Stupefyingly, the administration maintains that attitude to this day—refusing, for example, to address the plight of 2 million refugees because, you see, they'll all go home soon to a pacified Iraq.
Yet it's not just the administration that has its head in the sand; to varying degrees, we all do. For those of us who argued against invading, it is tempting to simply demand an end to "Bush's War" and wash our hands of it. But as General Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told us, "Your conscience is not clean just because you're a peace demonstrator." In other words, just because you weren't in favor of going in doesn't mean you're not responsible for what happens when we pull out."
The rest of the article is here:
I, for one, totally disagree with General Zinni. In what way are those of us who campaigned against, voted against, and have railed against the Bushites from Day One, to see ourselves as responsible for what happens when (if we ever) pull out of Iraq?
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posted by TheOldMan @ 3:35 AM
